Was installing gentoo a good accomplishment for a very first time linux guy?

[Skip]

a couple months ago, i was like hey i'm gonna try linux. so i did some research and figured that if i could install gentoo i could probably understand linux a lot better than installing any other distro. So i went and installed it, and i was like.... what now? cuz i didn't have anything to do with it. so i un-installed it and have been linux-less ever since.

i was just wondering if installing gentoo for a first time ever linux person was a good accomplishment or not.

i was able to even get a desktop up! and i browsed the internet, but there was no purpose of me using linux, because i mostly just play games.

[notoriousformula]

I tried Ubuntu..my first linux install. I was able to Play UT 2004, Download files using Azureus, Playing Super mario, browse net with both Firefox/Konquerer, watched xvid/divx movies, used Samba>Linux/windows file sharing, etc..after doin all that, i also came to the same halt where i was like whats next? So I took Ubuntu off and installed Suse 9.3 64bit last night.

[Crownie]

My first attempt at Linux was the latest edition of Fedora Core. Using Partition Magic I set up a dual boot Windows XP disk and had no troubles using both OS's. I found the Fedora Core installation to be very user friendly. I have not tried Gentoo.

[elec999]

Yes gentoo is a very big step. I tried installing it and kinda of failed for the first time. Then did it again, and got a bootable system. After I was using it, I could do anything, so I gave up. But linux is very powerfull once you learn it.
Thanks

[masterofpuppets]

I game using Gentoo :) I play Half-Life 2, HL2DM, HLDM, CS, Natural-Selection (all in Cedega) and as for native games, pretty much every ID software game. Curious, what stage did you install? I personally do a stage3 then recompile the toolchain as gcc3.4, then emerge -e world a couple of times.

[makatee]

Gentoo is a great linux distro...Personally, I can't stand the stupid distros that do everythig for you and while Gentoo can make some things easier, I consider it very much one of the best linux distros, in fact its what I game on too MasterofPuppets :toast: The BSD's are my choice for most of my boxes, but I also have a few slackware installs.

[masterofpuppets]

BSD is VERY good, but not if you hope to do gaming. nVidia make mediocre drivers for the one flavour of BSD, FreeBSD. But, there isn't any decent games built for BSD anyway. All of the good games like Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory are for GNU/Linux.

[Anarki]

Errr whats a guy gotta do to use linux?!?!

Every distro I've tried and setup, etc, doesn't have/detect drivers for my wireless keyboard/mouse and my wireless USB 54g dongle!

USB support seems to be lacking on the distro's I've tries, but then again it's probably my extreme lack of knowledge :(

[masterofpuppets]

No, USB support is actually superior to Windows, you just need the correct kernel module for your hardware to actually use it. Although, alot of hardware is covered by generic drivers, such as removable media, such as compact flash readers, is covered by one module. You'd be suprised how much hardware is supported, there's tons supported, even touch screens, and other obscure devices.

[mrapples]

wireless networking in linux still blows tho, usb ones especially

but its getting better

[Skip]

what stage did i install??

can't quite remember, it wasn't 1. i do remember building stuff. like i had to download a portage snapshot and do whatever. so with that info, maybe u can tell if it was 2 or 3.

my desktop and everything was already on the CD.

[Barrman]

my guess is that you did a stage 2,

If you did a stage one and understood what you where doing(ie all the optimizations and unpacking the tarballs and what not) and where not just following the examples in the gentoo manual then installing gentoo would be a great accomlishment.

If you did a stage 2 install with and ati card and wireless networking then I would say again you are well on your way.

However if you did a stage 2 and and used all the default options and stuff and stared at you desktop and though what good is this then maybe you have some more work cut out befor you can call yourself a linux prodigy :rolleyes:

Personally it took me 2-3 red hat/knoppix installs befor I would even attempt a stage one install of gentoo and then probably a good month or so to figure out how to get my ati drivers and wireless network working running flawlessly, after that I had a fun week of trying to figure out how to burn CD's (stupid SCSI emulation)

So if you can do that stuff I would deffinatly tip my hat to you :clap:

[masterofpuppets]

Stage1 is easy. All of the hard parts are handled by a script.

[mrapples]

stage 1 has some flaws tho, its best to do a stage three, rebuild the toolchain, harden it, and rebuild world

[masterofpuppets]

Why harden it? It's rather pointless unless you want a production rig. And yes, stage1 has circular dependency problems around the toolchain, which are rather irritating when you experience the effect they cause.

[Skip]

okay since i have absolutely no idea what the last 3 posts were about, i guess i don't know squat about linux :p

i was able to browse the internet on an nforce3 skt 754 motherboard, basically the reason i didn't keep it was because my mouse was ridiculously fast on linux desktop, i am a low sesitivity mouse user, and with a razer diamondback on full blast, its much to fast for me.

[masterofpuppets]

Just change the acceleration, it's really not difficult. Most bloated desktop envs have a mouse settings app.

[mrapples]

i think the better question is why not harden a system, plug in some cat5 or a wireless card and security is an issue...

[masterofpuppets]

Hardening a system should not be neccesary for a desktop system. It slows things down in my experience, it also makes binaries larger, and as a result, apps start slower and use more RAM.

[mrapples]

ive never noticed any slowdown, and the difference (if any) in binary sizes is immaterial in most cases